Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Ruchell Magee Must Be Set Free!
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
26 Jul 2023
🖨️ Print Article

Ruchell Magee Must Be Set Free! 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

If 1619 started it—ebony/ivory—

teenage attraction 

Jim Crow’s watch—upped the ante!

Deep South apartheid stench/Emmett

Till terror/Pitched battles on blood rivers…

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

 

Bullwhip warped minds of white men— 

What could this be but ‘Master’s’

midnight visits to slave quarters—Prying

apart Black thighs—overruling cries, pleas,  

Love?

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

 

Crackers coveted Choctaw land—

Black soil mattered…

More than visiting terror—or

Another muddy, mutilated body in Mississippi

or another Dixie river. Crackers coveting

Choctaw land put the boy in his plantation place… 

 

Crackers coveting Choctaw land gifted 8 Angola yrs,

Under horseback-ridin, shot-gun-totin, tobacco-spittin

gaze; Under King Cotton’s rule; Gifted target embroidered

Jacket— Gifted exile to: City of Angels/ruled by devils…

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

His numbers are no longer:

“6-3-4-5-7-8-9”

no longer:

“Beechwood 4-5-7-8-9” 

far too long his numbers been:

#A92051 #T115— 83—Caged since ’63—

60 yrs of vengeance-driven torture!

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

Visualize him home—sun splashing light comic 

book bright colors of L.A. murals!

Visualize him home, pulling three-deep lines snaked 

‘round crooked corners…holding youth centers, senior

centers, libraries, bookstores captive.

Visualize him home—space, light, air, freedom to stretch 

out in sensory overload!

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

No mo’ Golden State gulag/COVID 

concentration camp—

No mo’ Octogenarian barrister behind bars

law book-lifting—iron-pumping mind:

 

No mo’ memoranda, motion, writ and plea

No mo’ heroic, litigious—War of the Flea—

No mo’ symbol of strength/wisdom of tree—

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

Governor, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

 

Š 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.



 

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • CUNY Encampment
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The CUNY 8 Face Charges for Palestine Solidarity Protest
    20 Dec 2024
    Nora Fayad, one of the CUNY 8 arrested and charged with felony burglary and accused of attempting to enter a campus building without permission, joins us to discuss their court case.
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Eric Adams and Daniel Penny Make Black People the Face of Crime
    18 Dec 2024
    Daniel Penny’s acquittal was not surprising, and neither is Mayor Eric Adams' defense of Penny and law enforcement power being used against Black people.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    POEM: Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament, Sonia Sanchez, 1982
    18 Dec 2024
    “I have come to you tonite not just for the stoppage of nuclear proliferation, nuclear plants, nuclear bombs, nuclear waste, but to stop the proliferation  of nuclear minds….”
  • Jon Jeter
    From Bernhard Getz to George Zimmerman to Daniel Penny: Using Vigilantes to Police a Racist Social Order
    18 Dec 2024
    The state and vigilante lynchings of Black men and boys in the U.S. are not merely an aberration or a momentary relapse on the nation’s path to racial equality. They are part of the toolbox of…
  • Essam Elkorghli
    Syria’s Fall and Anti-Imperialist Lessons
    18 Dec 2024
    Similar to a predator realizing it is losing a fight and is reaching its end, the U.S. is lashing out and attempting to deepen its claws into subjugated nations like Syria, which just experienced a…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us